Mormon Missionary Moments: Drawing on the Powers of Heaven

If you’ve served a Mormon Mission, you are probably aware of the Grant Von Harrison book, Drawing on the Powers of Heaven. It’s like The Secret for Mormons. The Deseret Book description of the pamphlet sized book reads:

The powers of heaven are very real and can dramatically influence the course of events in a person’s life.

Exercising the faith required to call upon the powers of heaven involves a very specific process. In order to be proficient at exercising faith, you must understand the process thoroughly and then learn to apply the process in your daily pursuits.

Essentially, the idea is that there is a recipe for becoming spiritually powerful . Just as The Secret purports to provide a unique guide to hidden untapped power via feelings, Drawing of the Powers of Heaven claims via a Cognitive-Behavioral approach that certain actions and behaviors lead one to a state of worthiness for God’s power.

As a Mormon missionary, that means that if you do all the right things you will lead others to get baptized into the Mormon Church. In other words, if you insert obedience into the God ATM, punch in the specific PIN code (sexual purity, intense scripture study, hard work, unwavering faith in all things Mormon), then out will come spiritual money in the form of inspiration, concrete results and miracles.

It sounds awesome, doesn’t it? Except that things don’t really work like that in the real world or even in the Mormon missionary world.

The most obedient, faithful missionaries aren’t necessarily the ones who baptize the most.

Inspiration and creativity don’t depend upon any sort of moral purity or “worthiness” of the individual.

The sort of person who subscribes to this kind of philosophy often ends up being a real asshole.

Charisma isn’t something you can learn or “do”.

Testimonies to the success of this sort of idea always remember the hits and ignore the misses.

Even if you’ve never read this book, the concepts within will not be foreign to an active Mormon. Guilt plays a huge factor in the ubiquitous Mormon philosophy that actions reap concrete physical and spiritual rewards. In fact, at the end of every chapter of this book there a sort of warning that,

“If you don’t do this you’ll be held accountable before God…you will be sorry all your life. Not only you will suffer endless torment but those who you aren’t converting because if your laziness and unworthiness will not gain eternal salvation due to your lack of faith and obedience.”

Now, I for one worked really hard on my mission. I was “fortunate” to be sent to a place where people were relatively welcoming and receptive to our message. I could probably claim that I achieved the sort of success that Grant Von Harrison talks about. I baptized over a hundred people and don’t think I went a single month without reporting that I’d baptized at least one soul. But I’m certain that none of it was due to the kinds of things that Harrison attributes to this sort of success.

The entire philosophy is bullshit and I even knew it back then.

I saw charismatic, but lazy and disobedient missionaries regularly baptize dozens more each month than I did.

I knew “spiritual giants” who were sent to places like Italy, Japan and Sweden who were lucky to baptize even one person their entire mission.

But my final debunking of this entire idea came once I met Grant Von Harrison himself. He was my bishop during my first year at BYU right after I’d returned from my mission. I’m going to try hard to not follow with the ad hominem fallacy that just because Grant Von Harrison was a nasty person therefore his ideas are false. I don’t believe that.

For me, his ideas were draconian and untrue before I met him. But meeting him and getting to know him confirmed my impression that this “Power of Heaven” philosophy did not lead one to become the type of person I admired. He ran the ward like a cold military commander and was incapable of drumming up emotion and warmth if his life depended upon it. I doubt anyone in a Mormon Priesthood leadership position was as far away from the man Jesus Christ in the New Testament than this man was.

Testimony meetings in that ward were even ripe with references to his cold demeanor. Students would say things like, “I know bishop Harrison isn’t the hugging, feeling, emotional type but I know he is inspired… blah, blah, blah…” I remember Bishop Harrison telling us in Elder’s Quorum meeting once that getting an erection while kissing was a sin. He even wrote another book on the topic called “Is Kissing Sinful?”. The guy was a piece of work I tell you.

I had occasion to become good friends with a counselor in our Stake Presidency at the time and he confided in me that Bishop Harrison conducted more disciplinary counsels in his BYU ward than in the rest of the stake combined and that this then led to more disfellowshipments and excommunications.

On a person level, Grant Von Harrison was the first bishop with whom I ever shared anything that would lead any reasonable, clear thinking person to assume that I might be gay. You know what his reaction was?

“Don’t ever think on this again. Don’t entertain memories of this thought. Don’t talk about it with anyone ESPECIALLY YOUR FUTURE WIFE… and don’t ever feel that again”

Seriously, I’m not exaggerating. His best advice was to Turn it Off. Unfortunately, I tried far too long to follow his advice.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve read or been told that “turning it off” isn’t a Mormon idea. It’s just all in disaffected Mormons’ heads and that my failing to come to terms with my homosexuality is due to my lying and deceitful nature.

I DID make a grave personal mistake by thinking for far too long that my personal desires which aligned with Mormon ideals would materialize if I just prayed hard enough, studied hard enough and pretended hard enough. But I didn’t do that in a vacuum. It was an approach based firmly and solidly on the type of faulty Mormon philosophy painted in Drawing on the Powers of Heaven.

Do yourself a favor and don’t go near that book with a 10 foot pole. There are a lot of good people and good things in Mormonism, but Grant Von Harrison’s Drawing on the Powers of Heaven isn’t one of them.

All I have to say is that as a misisonary this book worked wonders for me. I have seen the results that only an all powerful God could have given me. The book talks about the 2 types of faith right? 1. The faith that leads us to action, and 2. the faith in God for miracles to occur. You have seen and read testimonies from various people here. And you can tell me whatever you want, but i KNOW what i have experienced as a missionary and after the mission as well.

Its also interesting to see that the haters of this book are all ex-mormons… You know the statistics of ex-missionaries becoming inactive are 6 out of every 10? Why do you think that is? Because they didnt “have success” in their missions? just something to think about…

i think 6 out of 10 missionaries become inactive because once home from the mission the cultish brainwashing starts to wear off and they begin to actually think for once in their lives.

I’d be happy to place my mission up for comparision in terms of “success” with yours any day. In LDS terms, I baptized over a hundred people many of whom went on to serve missions, get married in the temple and now have children doing the same. In real world terms it was as much a failure as any other guy’s mission because it was a couple of years without really contributing to the world and providing concrete service to my fellow man beyond conversion.

You “KNOWING” reads no different that any other Scientologists, JW or other various and sundry cult members. Of course, it’s always the EX-Scientologists who are the ones complaining about that religion too. Funny how one has to leave to recognize it’s a cult.

I read the book while in my freshman year at college. I’m an engineering major and believe in practical results (I’m still in school) and so I decided to put it to a test. I thought, “what’s the best way to prove this works?” After some thought I came to the conclusion that asking for the right spiritual gift was the best solution. I read a scripture that said the gift of charity is the pure love of Christ and a commandment was given seek charity. So that seemed the most logical answer: how can God deny me a gift he’s commanded me to seek in the first place?

I followed the book like an architectural plan. I fasted and prayed for Charity. As a sacrifice, I offered to give up my hatred of people. For the trials of faith mentioned in the book, I decided my plan of action was to replace any negative thought about someone with a positive thought. This was quite a challenge to me as I am naturally a pretty negative and sarcastic person. I’m best described as Jack Nicholson in “As Good As It Gets. Anyway, the author says trials of faith typically last 3 weeks so I decided that would be the length of my test.

I was sincere in my desire for the gift of Charity. The scripture that intrigued me most, stated:

“And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail —

But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.”

So I fasted and prayed and didn’t notice much. Whenever somebody would irritate me I’d think a general nice thought about them and shrug it off. I thought, “there’s nothing to this.” But near the end of week two, and I don’t know what it was, but people started to *really* irritate me. I thought maybe it was the result of holding back all my frustration with people instead of venting it. But were people really going out of their way to be rude to me?? But I was committed, I was nearing week 3 and didn’t want to have to start all over with the test.

Then week 3 happened. Everything went wrong. People were inconceivably rude and I found myself wanting to become a hermit. But I persisted on. “They cut me off because they probably have an emergency and I hope they’re ok.” “My professor criticized my work because he cares for my academic excellence.” I was so surprised by all the challenges that I started to think, this is *REAL*!

It was then that I found that I had locked my keys in the car at school for the second time that month. That’s ok, I’ll just call home and my brother will bring me my spare key. He laughed at my plight and said he was heading out with some friends and couldn’t bring by my key. I found out he was actually coming near the college so I said, “but it’s on the way, you’d just miss a couple minutes!” He said “yeah, but I don’t wanna.” And hung up on me. I turned three shades of red. I had a LONG history of fighting with my brother. Fist fights were actually frequent. We did not get along at all. So I started the long walk home and had nothing but negative thoughts about my brother, but then I thought: this is another trial! I didn’t want another trial. I wanted to have a good long hate. My brother deserved it. I deserved it. But I made a decision, I had come this far, I *have* to get through this.

But then I had a major problem… I couldn’t think of anything nice to say about my brother! I had hated him so long that there was literally nothing I could think of that was nice about him. I didn’t want to make stuff up. He’s a kind person? Lie! He means well? LIES!! I thought and I thought and dug deep into our past when we were young and got along. I replaced my negative thoughts with some of the fond memories I had about him when we were kids. Just before getting home, and finally (after much effort) making progress with these positive thoughts, I thought I heard someone say, “well done.”

At that moment a miracle happened. I was flooded with love for my brother to the very brim. I was sad that he wasn’t there because I wanted to hug him and tell him I forgive him for everything. Nothing mattered from the past, he was my brother and I loved him and cared only for his safety and happiness. I also felt love for my family, and friends, and neighbors, and EVERYONE! I was so overwhelmed by this love that I had to find a way to vent it. It was exhausting and I needed to express it somehow, but I didn’t want to come across as some kind of group-hug freak so I came up with a plan. I decided that the only place people wouldn’t be too freaked out about me telling them how special – how absolutely wonderful they are and how much I love them – was as a Christian missionary! They say that kind of silly stuff all the time, right? So I went on a mission.

That love eventually waned – albeit very slowly. The mission was a wonderful experience for me. Currently I don’t have that much love in my heart, but I remember what it was like very clearly. I believe that I tasted only a fraction of the love Christ has for each of us, and let me tell you something – it’s real and it’s as vast as the Hubble deep field images. When I felt this love for my brother, I didn’t care about his offenses against me. I cared only that they were still hurting him, that he was only hurting himself by hating me. I wanted to pick him up and cast all his problems behind him.

I think the book helped me to understand faith well enough to experience this miracle in my life. It transformed me and I hope with all my heart that some of you may get to experience this yourselves. You are valuable, infinitely so. Love yourself, and love others, because in the end that is all that matters.

Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I like your story, but forgive me if I say that it’s a wonderful story about love and forgiveness. It has almost nothing whatsoever to do with the claims made in Drawing on the Powers of Heaven.

I’ve also had powerful experiences with love and forgiveness… the most powerful being when I forgave my ex-wife for moving away with the kids. I totally get where you are coming from with that angle to your story. The fact that you got concrete results from a concerted effort on your part is not the claim made by that book. Of course when you take pains to not judge and be more forgiving…to show charity, then you will see results.

DOTPOH instead claims that completely unrelated results will flow from irrelevant efforts such as obedience to mission rules and other “worthiness” benchmarks. That’s the part that is untrue.

Your comment was moving and beautiful. The only thing that makes sense in this world is the pure love of Christ. He teaches us to strive to be better people, to live like he lived and to serve and love others as he has. For the scriptures teach us that Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday and forever. If we live with that love in our hearts and carry that love to others, he will live in our lives and in our hearts for all our lives. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and for sharing your love for our Savior Jesus Christ.

Awesome! Thanks for sharing that Ryan. Dad’s Primal Scream, I like your blog –the core idea anyway. We do have core desires that we should pay attention to. But we have to yield on the process to obtain them. If we really want them, we’ll do anything. No sacrifice is too great. But of course the sacrifice has to be done in balance. We’ll crash and burn before we get there if we try to run too fast all at once. We’ll never get there if we start playing in the Lotus Casino (Percy Jackson). Reading the book, “Drawing On The Powers Of Heaven” by Grant Von Harrison was a turning point for me in my life. And he is teaching foundational truths from his own perspective. That’s all any of us are doing. We’re all looking at the same thing. How we see it defines who we are. Grant Von Harrison is saying that if I have a desired destination I need to embark on a specific pathway to obtain it. I can’t take some other pathway that leads to some other destination and still obtain that destination. There are choices, opportunity costs, consequences. There’s no getting around that. As I travel the pathway to my desired destination, I may not always be able to identify which way to go. Luckily there are road signs posted by previous travelers. There’s also a sense of joy that I experience when I’m on the right pathway to obtaining the desired destination I chose in the first place. And there’s no mistaking that feeling. It is the best feeling I have ever experienced and I can’t get it by willing it alone. So people can dance, scream, argue, discuss, whatever and it’s not going to change my mind unless their words carry with them that feeling. If they do, I know they are in alignment with God. If they don’t, sorry. I’m so glad for that sense because these days there are people who actually put up road signs that confuse, distract, and make things way more complicated than they have to be. The bottom line is this: Is my specific desired destination going to end me up with the continuous INTENSITY of joy I want to experience on a daily basis?

“It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it.” – Edwin Way Teale (1889-1980), Circle Of The Seasons, 1953

“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Thanks Kaylanamars, Anon and Rob for dropping by an for your comments. Maybe that book is a divining rod. If you can read it as a faithful Mormon and realize that it’s a load of dung, then your days as a faithful Mormon are numbered. You can think. It took me another 20 years but I eventually thought hard enough.

I never met this Harrison guy but I read his book on my mission. Once. And I instantly concluded that it was all crap, just as you’ve stated, and for the very same reasons you’ve stated too. Another crack in the wall of my naivete. Later at BYU I met people who’d been in his ward, and they described him the same way you have: a cold, callous, authoritarian petty dictator who was the antithesis of anything Christlike. That confirmed to me that my conclusions about his book were correct and that Harrison is a skilled practitioner of the priestcraft which his no doubt beloved Book of Mormon so vigorously condemns.

“The Secret for Mormons”––a PERFECT description of that POS book. A member of my mission presidency taught Von Harrison’s gospel with such fervor (not the book or the author specifically, but the concepts) that my mission president called him “obnoxious” in a transfer meeting in front of 100+ missionaries (the guy wasn’t there at the time). Even the most devout Mormons ought to recognize that book as utter bullshit.

I’ll just say that this was one of the books on my mission that completely made me crazy. I could never ever live up to that. My companion read that book like crazy and kept commenting on how awesome it was and how we should do all that stuff in the book and then we’d get those awesome baptisms. It just threw me deeper into my already deep depression. Interesting to know that the author is an asshole in real life.